Dave Chappelle and Kevin Hart each pointed out that comedians’ material is useless if the fans see the same material online.
The latest trend with Las Vegas Strip performers is to collect smartphones at the door, so audience members do not interrupt live shows by filming the performance. Many musical concerts and standup acts these days are filled with hundreds, maybe thousands, of smartphone camera lights in a dark concert venue.
Many fans find the smartphone lights to be distracting. Of course, a large number of audience members at the Las Vegas Strip casinos have given the counter-policy mixed reviews.
Dave Chappelle was the first Las Vegas Strip performer to have his audience members lock up their phones for his performance. Chappelle insisted on the policy at his May 2017 show at Mandalay Bay.
The comedian has continued the ban on phones during his performances ever since. A statement was released last year regarding the new policy at his shows.
Dave Chappelle: “No Cell Phones Allowed”
Dave Chappelle’s statement on phones said: “These are strict NO CELL PHONES ALLOWED shows. Fans are advised to leave phones in their cars or at home. Anyone who brings a cell phone will be required to place it in a locked Yondr pouch that will be unlocked at the end of the show.”
“Guests maintain possession of their phones throughout the night, and if needed, may access their phones at designated Yondr unlocking stations. All patrons are subject to a pat down and wanding. Anyone found with an unlocked cell phone inside the venue will be immediately ejected.”
Chappelle, like many other entertainers, does not love giving away free shows via the videos their audience takes and then later posts to Instagram or Facebook. Like the argument about illegal torrent download sites, performers need a legitimate revenue stream, because they depend on the public paying for their work.
If all of their performances were displayed across the Internet for free, they could not afford to be performers at all.
Chappelle discussed his new phone free shows on Jimmy Kimmel early last year, saying, “There’s a lot of reasons. One, it became a thing where I’d walk on stage, I’d see a sea of cellphones, so I knew that anything [said] in the room, I was saying to everybody, whether they were in the room or not — which is not an empowering feeling as a comedian.”
1st Rule of Chapelle Shows: Don’t Film Chapelle Shows
The comedian added, “It’s like fight club rules apply: what I’m saying to you, I’m keeping to people in the room. The other thing is comedians need an element of surprise, so if someone sees a joke that I’m doing, then I’ve got to do whole new jokes that I couldn’t write fast enough.”
Kimmel replied that performers are hesitant to take risks when the world is watching versus a smaller intimate audience. With social media, it is easy for recorded content to stay on YouTube forever. Beyond that, many in the audience find the cellphones disruptive. Because the people have to stick the phones over their heads to film the show, they naturally block the view of people for several rows behind them.
Las Vegas Performers Who Use Yondr
Chappelle was just the start to new line of celebs doing the same. Multiple Las Vegas performers have since followed suit. Most celebs are using Yondr locking devices to keep their audiences under lock and key. These “pouches” were created by the San Francisco-based technology company, Yondr.
So far, the list of Vegas Strip performers who have followed Chappelle’s lead are Chris Rock (The Park Theater), Jack White (at Brooklyn Bowl), and Kevin Hart (at The Chelsea at the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas). The most recent performer to do so was Bruno Mars (Park Theater), which drew a new wave of attention.
Read the Fine Print
Though Bruno Mars gave his concert goers a warning of his new policy, it was more of a fine print read rather that a direct statement. MGM Resorts released a statement beforehand to those who purchased tickets to Mar’s performance: “No Refunds or Exchanges. No smoking, this includes vaping and e-cigarettes, no audio recorders/cellphones/smart watches/cameras/recording devices, and no outside food.”
Earlier fans were not happy that they only learned of the policy at the front gates. While any concert ticket enforcing the rule has a warning in the fine print of the ticket, few fans read the fine print. Those fans expect performers and venues to know that, so they got offended when they were told to “read the fine print”.
Phones have become a crutch to most of society these days. Many, especially in the Gen X and millennial generations, do not know how to live life without them. When moments come where people are separated from their phones in any way, people tend to freak out. Though they might be liberated at a concert from the need to film everything, most heavy users of cellphones do not like the policy.
Kevin Hart: No Exceptions
Celebs that are setting these new policies are taking it very seriously and when they say no phones, they mean no phones. Back in June, Kevin Hart let his audience know there are no exceptions to it.
Shalyn Kivela, Evraz Place’s manager of digital media and corporate communications, talked about Hart’s policy regarding phones: “If you’re caught using your phone, no warning will be given, and you will be ejected from the show without a refund. Once you’re inside the Brandt Centre, your phones are to be put away and stayed away for the duration of the show.”
Kivela warned that if at any point in the show audience members were caught using their phones for anything – be it talk, text, filming video, or taking pictures — they would be immediately kicked out of the show.
Hart, similar to Chappelle and other comedians, does this to protect his material as well as having a more intimate audience rather than the whole world looking on through an audience members camera lens. Shalyn Kivela said, “If people were allowed to record their performances, they’d really have no material to tour with. They want you to hear it live and not on YouTube.”
That concern rings true for comedians, though musical performers are playing songs their fans have heard hundreds of times. Still, there are a select few who are huge fans of this new trend. Like people who dislike smartphones in dark movie theaters, many prefer Yondr-controlled shows now to a concert with the audience viewing the show through their phone camera lens.
